The Love Song of Cal Lightman
by Aleia Jade
Summary: There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create...And indeed there will be time to wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"


_A/N: Lovingly adapted from "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" by T S Eliot. Lyrics are Confide in Me by Angtoria._

_Calculated Artificiality: Heeeere you go! T.S. Eliot tiems. Thanks for watching over this! Also thanks to recoilandgrace for positive comments, Village Hall for the astronomy consultation, and Kelsey for her fantastic fact-finding/-checking/-providing._

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* * *

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_I can keep a secret_  
_And throw away the key_  
_But sometimes to release it_  
_Is to set our children free _

* * *

They're sitting in his office. It's late; most of the staff has gone home for the night. Around the edges of the blinds, the sunset creeps in. It halos the window with gold, back-lighting it like the clock on a cable box haunts the living room at two forty-five in the morning.

She's watching, waiting. Sitting there before his desk with her perfect posture and her crisp curls, swirling the scotch in her hands.

He slouches down and bides his time, narrow eyes focused on hers…suddenly he's up, on his feet, glass banging onto the table.

"Well then. Bit late, isn't it, Foster? What're you still hanging about for? Don't you know it's half eleven?"

And with that, his coat is on and he's whisked himself out of the door before she can respond, before she can ask a question. _A _question, one to inquire after_ the _question playing about his face and lurking in the shadows of his eyes, the corners of the room.

* * *

He's taken the long way to the address, winding them through side streets and residential districts when the highway would have been a straight shot.

The silence in the car is heavy but not tense, pregnant but not laboring.

She's noticed the detours, waited for him to broach whatever insidious conversational topic he's brooding over, patiently tried to draw him out with remarks about the fancy houses or the fine driving weather. She's done her best to subtly bring his attention to the fact that she _knows_ something's going on, but as she opens her mouth to speak, they pull into the drive.

He's muttering something about how tacky it is to line your yard with shells and telling her to hurry up, so she swallows the thought and follows him inside.

* * *

He's stalked down this hallway six times this evening. He could do it again. She's still there, after all.

But so is everyone else, and he really doesn't want to bark at Torres again. He can see through the doorframe, as he hesitates, that she and Heidi are whispering about him [How his patience is growing thin!].

He's already gotten bullied the lab rats, walked to the bathroom twice, and gotten three cups of coffee tonight. All excuses to brush past her door after his minute's decision to walk in has been revised.

He's belligerent, arrogant, reckless.

But in truth, he is something of a coward.

[How his courage is growing thin!]

* * *

He wakes up groggy, lying on the living room floor. There's a grey light peeking through the windows, and the orange clock on his cable box says it's six-fifteen. But morning or evening? He can't remember. It's been so very long since he was awake.

His hand knocks something over. There's a tinkling, like glass, but it keeps going. Like lots of glass? He manages to peel his face from the carpet and turns, to see a row of shot glasses standing in what would have been neat perfection against the edge of the rug.

Fifteen…eighteen? Eighteen shots? He's not seeing double. He already checked that against the rest of the room. There really are nearly twenty glasses on his floor. In an orderly line. He decides not to think about it and passes out again.

He wakes up later to flashes of images, memories. Zoe in the delivery room. Gillian and Alec's anniversary. A dinner for Zoe's office he'd been dragged to. Burns. Clara. Radar. …Shit. He'd measured out his life in shots-every fling, every domestic duty, every moment of jealousy. He's known them all and drunk them all.

What else is there to do?

* * *

He used to know men who kept track of their conquests. He used to, too. It started as a game, a way to prove himself, but morphed into a way of remembering. Even the hookers were memorialized, albeit with much less respect.

A few years back, that changed. He can't quite pinpoint when, but it did. Women got harder and harder to tell apart, more difficult to differentiate. He stopped _seeing _them and just _knew_ them instead.

That way he wouldn't comment on freckles that weren't there, wouldn't be surprised when the lamplight revealed chestnut instead of blonde hair.

He stopped caring, became insensitive to feminine wiles. He didn't cease to make use of them, but they no longer excited him, brought the same thrill and rush of adrenaline. All the arms felt the same, _her_ arms. He's felt her arms before, and now every woman's touch recalls that, recalls _her_.

All it takes is a certain scent of flowers, the clean smell of perfume lingering on a dress, and suddenly he's slipping away from the present, distracted by a memory of what never has been.

He's with her every time he's with someone else. It's a presumption, to be sure, but what else is there to do?

* * *

It's a slow day at the office. He's pleased, she's pleased, Torres and Loker are pleased, Heidi and Anna are pleased. No one is dying, no one is being arrested, all open cases are in the limbo states of paperwork or preliminary investigation.

He'd ordered lunch delivered, and they'd eaten in companionable silence. Thai and tea and slushie. It was a happy, light lunch. Now as they sit, she looks lazily at a file; he looks lazily at her.

His universe is spiraling towards the singularity, [and with a grin, he steals her slushie, drops the mask and bares it all to her. "There now, Foster, I've decided to come clean with you."

And after all, after the slushies and the pudding, after the late night talks and the drinks and the smirks, after the eyebrows, after the heels that click staccato down the hallways, after all this and more, after he has presented himself, trembling and undisguised before her,

She pulls the cup towards her once more and settles back into her chair.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, Cal. I never dreamed you would interpret things this way."

And she stands slowly, deliberately, unremorsefully, and turns to the window, carelessly observing something, nothing, anything.]

* * *

He gets up and leaves the office; strides down the hallway, brushing past Heidi and her questions, nearly tripping Anna in his brisk saunter out the door.

Out on the D.C. sidewalk he's just another bloke in a business jacket, another pedestrian on a crowded, busy street.

He looks in a shop window; contemplates a new shirt, considers one that's not black or navy.

He thinks about a shave, a haircut; wonders if he should pick up dinner for Emily or if he should let her fend for herself in the kitchen. She's a decent enough cook.

Eventually he winds up near the Mall. Twilight's creeping across the sky; somehow he's missed the sunset. He can see the moon rising, shining dimly in the glare of a thousand streetlamps and neon signs.

She's sworn she can see stars despite the light pollution. He'd indulged her one night in a fit of drunken benevolence, and she'd spun stories of shooting stars and wishes, her voice sparkling in the night air.

Loitering near a bench, he throws another glance skyward, doubtful. He will not see the stars; the wishes are a myth.

He'll sit on the bench a while longer, and then his daughter will call or she'll come to find him. He'll return to the office in the morning, and maybe he'll still be wondering. But sometimes making no choice is a decision in itself.

The decision is made.

_

* * *

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
Till human voices wake us and we drown._


End file.
